Sunday, September 27, 2015

After selling out their
originally scheduled show, Kraftwerk added a second show later in the
same evening. There were conflicting reports as to whether this show
sold out as well, but judging by the number of empty seats, it most
likely did not.

This is a band I don't
think I ever imagined I would get to see. Kraftwerk don't seem to
tour very extensively, and they rarely ever tour the US. As far as I
know, they've only performed full US tours twice before last year: in
1975 and 1981. (For details, see here.)
Last year, they toured the world to promote their reissued Cataloguebox set. This year, they've
returned for more with a Kraftwerk in 3D
tour. It seems logical
to connect this recent burst of touring with the departure in
2008 of founding member
Florian Schneider, who was
known to be rather reclusive.

Initially, I was
concerned that the 3D aspect was just going to be a gimmick, similar
to the attempts of Hollywood to use the same idea to convince
moviegoers to return to the theaters and pay extra. However, I'd long
since known that Kraftwerk had taken to developing intricate visual
experiences for their concerts to make up for their lack of
traditional "stage presence". For a band bound to their
keyboards and electronics (and also considered to be somewhat awkward
and reserved), this is a wise strategy, and it certainly paid off.

Obviously, I was there
for the music above all else, but I was very impressed by the visual
component. The band started off with a bunch of songs from their
Computer World album from
1981, which were enhanced by
floating and pulsating numbers, various technological imagery, and
other scenes
clearly referencing the associated album artwork. The
visuals served to further highlight
the continuing relevance of many of the tracks: the references to big
business and data security in "Computer World", the
precursors to online dating presaged by "Computer Love",
and the foreshadowing of smartphones in "Pocket Calculator".

Kraftwerk
then proceeded to a section of songs from The Man-Machine
(1978). "Spacelab" was particularly humorous, as the
visuals were projected such that it appeared that the band members
were manipulating a space ship orbiting Earth. As the song
progressed, their ship appeared to be landing. One visual featured
satellite imagery panning northwards from Mexico. The crowd
understood what was happening and cheered when a red marker appeared
at the geographic location of Austin. This changed to a street map of
downtown Austin followed by photographs of the actual venue.
Ultimately, their ship settled down right in front of the building!

The
imagery for the classic "Autobahn"
began with an display
resembling the associated album cover, but then continued to display
various vehicles driving about the (presumably German) countryside
highway. Most of the visuals seemed to be an excuse to show off
high-quality processing of reflected images on the chrome and mirrors
of the cars. The song was rearranged to be substantially shorter than
the full 23-minute album version, but it was perhaps a little longer
than nine-minute version from The Mix.

The
next segment featured a
series of tracks from Radio-Activity,
including several of the shorter, experimental sound collage pieces.
This included the "Geiger Counter" intro to "Radioactivity"
and the faux-radio announcements of "Intermission" and
"News". The latter featured the spoken text floating
backwards in space, and as more voices were overlaid, the text field
became increasingly crowded. "Radioactivity" was adapted to
include references to Sellafield and Fukushima, clearly highlighting
the political nature of the song. (Kraftwerk have appeared at many
anti-nuclear protest concerts.) I was also delighted by the odd
choice of "Ohm Sweet Ohm", a ridiculous track that reveals
their dry humor.

After
continuing their waltz through their back catalog, the curtain fell
on the stage briefly before lifting up for "The Robots".
But instead of the band members, there were animatronic human figures
moving about behind the synthesizers. The visuals featured complex
computer-generated images of similar robot versions of the musicians.
It was simultaneously hilarious, creepy, and fascinating, all of
which was more than enough to distract from the fact that we were
presumably hearing a taped version of the song.

The
curtain fell again, and after a long pause, the (real) band finally
reappeared for a final encore. "Aéro Dynamik" might not be
a very exciting song, but the extended medley derived from the first
side of Electric Café
(1986) was a great way to end the night. While "Musique
Non-Stop" fittingly
continued to pulsate, the band members one by one walked to the edge
of the stage, bowed, and departed. The programmed music continued for
another moment before it reached its end.

While
the visual experience of the show was exceptional and far better than
I had expected, the musical component should not be overlooked or
taken for granted, either. The band had rearranged and updated most
of the songs, such as to make them immediately recognizable, yet
different from album versions in subtle ways. Many songs were really
medleys with elements from multiple songs or components that were
restructured from the recorded versions. Their willingness to keep
developing the songs made the show unpredictable in a thoroughly
enjoyable fashion.

Furthermore,
the lyrics were a blend of the German and English versions – along
with the French, Russian, Spanish, and whatever else is
heard in all versions of some songs. I honestly wasn't expecting the
bilingualism, but I liked the
effect, and as a German-speaker, it reminded me of the slight
differences in translation required by setting lyrics to a melody.
(For the sake of convenience, I have used the English or
international titles throughout this article, although it would have
been just as fair to use the German versions.)

I had high expectations
for this show going into it, considering how influential this band
has been upon musical history and myself, but Kraftwerk exceeded all
of them. The sound quality and mix were pristine; you literally could
not ask for better. The 3D visuals were great, and even if some were
a little cheesy, their playfulness and wit made them well worth the
while. I suppose one could always ask for new songs or (gasp!) a new
album, but for a band that's been around over 45 years, they do a
fairly good job of reinventing themselves and staying relevant as
time goes on. It helps that they were so far ahead of their
contemporaries in the first place.

Score: A

P.S. Big thanks to my
dad, both for introducing me to this band eleven or twelve years ago
and for flying into town to join me at this concert. Thanks also to
my mom and Alyssa for excusing us for an evening!

P.P.S. For the setlist
of the early show, see here.
It is conspicuously similar with the exception of missing "Ohm
Sweet Ohm" and "Electric Café" and trading "Aéro
Dynamik" for "Planet of Visions". I think I got the
better deal!

I have a bad history
with getting really excited about a band just after they've broken
up. Take, for example, my fascination with The
Smashing Pumpkins, who I became a fan of in 2001, less than a
year after they'd split. Or consider Siouxsie
& the Banshees, who I found out about just after their final
reunion tour in 2002. Well, it turns out that I bought my first
Godspeed You! Black Emperor album (actually, it was their EP) in
2004, about a year after they'd split up.

Sometimes, though, you
get a second chance. Obviously, it's debatable whether The Smashing
Pumpkins are quite as good the second time around, but at least when
it comes to GY!BE, one could almost believe they didn't disappear for
seven years. It's not that their two post-reunion albums don't show
growth from Yanqui U.X.O. (2002),
but it's more like
they just needed a break and then decided to take the next logical
step forward. Long gone are the days of vox populi spoken word
segments and tracks with multiple individually named movements. The
band still prefers lengthy works with large-scale dynamic buildups,
but now there is even less focus on specific words and ideas and more
of a sense of depth,
imagery, and heaviness.

While
the band has always expressed themselves well without words, seeing
them live only proves the point further. The eight instrumental
members sit or stand on stage in something of a circle with no vocal
mics anywhere to be seen. They start and stop playing like they could
do it even if they weren't
deliberately facing each other and avoiding eye contact with the
audience. There's one extra element that brings it all together: the
ninth member, not be found
on stage, but rather about five feet to the
right of where I was standing
on the first balcony. Karl Lemieux patiently manipulated three slide
projectors and racks of bits of tape throughout then entire show, and
it's his work (along with whomever else produced the images) that
contextualizes the music and makes the implicit messages a little
more, shall we say, explicit.

Initially,
the slides were mostly just vague, scratchy scrawls with the
occasional
appearance of the word "hope", lending a name to the band's
post-reunion regular opening drone. This may have gone on a little
long, but it certainly set
the moodfor
the subsequent performance of the entirety
of the new album, Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress.
Even though this rendition
was not substantially different than the studio recording, it is
still a powerful experience and certainly enhanced by the visual
material, which shifted towards themes of urban decay and abandoned
houses. (Certainly this wouldn't be a critique of unbridled American
capitalism, would it!?)

This
performance was also special for a historical reason. The band has
been performing the material on this album since 2012, when it was
known by fans as "Behemoth" due to appearing to be a
single, continuous 45-minute work. It was at this same venue in that
year that the band played one of the first versions of this work, and
a high-quality (authorized!) fan recording widely circulated the
following
day. (See here;
it's still freely available for streaming and download.)

The
second half of the evening was a mix of very old favorites ("Moya"
from the aforementioned Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada
EP and "The Sad Mafioso" from their debut album F♯
A♯ ∞) and two new songs,
continuing their longstanding trend of debuting new material on the
road years before releasing studio versions. The old songs were no
surprise but great to witness live. "The Sad Mafioso" was
extended substantially,
building from the opening sparse, wayward guitar notes and droning
soundscape to a massive, heavy, rocking beast.

The
two new works were the highlight of the night: they were entirely
unpredictable even while still working in the band's familiar modes.
The first opened with pretty bass chords followed by chiming,
interlocked guitars before expanding outward. Slides depicted
unfinished or abandoned buildings and stock market tickers, seeming
to indict senselessly destructive real estate speculation. The second
started with folky violin and picked guitar patterns. It
built up very slowly with a slow tempo, but eventually changed
direction entirely with heavier guitars and a faster pace. It
ultimately felt like a very long piece; recent concert recordings
indicate it is about 22 minutes long. (See here
or here,
for example.) The slides for this piece mostly followed train tracks
through a wooded countryside. The emotional message was less clear to
me, but the music was good enough that I didn't mind. [Edit 2017.10.23: These songs appear as "Bosses Hang" and "Anthem for No State" on the 2017 album Luciferian Towers.]

There
is only one other thing I can really criticize about the show: the
mix. For the most part, it was as great as most shows I see at this
venue or almost anywhere in Austin. However, the low end was overdone
and a bit muddy. Mixing a band with two bassists, three guitarists,
two drummers, and a violinist is probably a bit of a de facto
challenge, although in practice the only part left to be desired was
the distinction and clarity of the two bassists. I could usually hear
one or the other, but rarely both. The resulting morass of low-end
excess actually felt physically weighty and almost sickening. I had
to give up my spot and sit down at one point because I couldn't take
it. Now, I usually enjoy the physical element of live music (when I
have appropriate ear protection at hand, of course!), but on this
occasion I think there was a flaw in the sound design.

A
word about the openers: I was interested in seeing this collaboration
between Cretan lutenist George Xylouris and former Dirty Three
drummer Jim White, but as
the set times weren't posted
until 6pm and the opener went on at 7:15pm, there was little I could
do to see the full set. Of the 15 minutes I did see, it seemed like
they held promise, but it's hard to say more than that. Xylouris'
lute sounded way cooler than I would have expected, but his voice
didn't do much for me. Meanwhile, White's drumming was maybe just a
bit too unhinged. Perhaps I looked too closely, but I thought the
timing wasn't always as sharp as I would've expected. Still, I wish I
could've seen the whole thing.